The Berets

by W. E. B Griffin

  As the ferocious-looking sergeant came close to him, he smiled.

  “And where did you have your hand that it wasn’t welcome?” he inquired, while the other MP laughed. And they kept walking.

  Geoff looked over his shoulder as they continued down the corridor.

  “I giff you a hand wid dat,” a heavily accented voice said at his shoulder. “Dragging it on duh groundt, you shouldn’t.”

  Startled, Geoff snapped his head around and found himself looking at a very large young man in uniform. He was everything that he was not, Geoff thought instantly. His uniform was impeccable. He was a PFC, and pinned to the breast pocket of his tunic were the qualification badges he had earned in basic training. Geoff had qualified with his weapon, and had been awarded a simple Iron Cross (which he had thought a little odd, for the U.S. Army), signifying that he was a Rifle Marksman. This PFC had the Expert Medal (the marksman’s Iron Cross, surrounded by a wreath and with the representation of a bull’s-eye superimposed on it). Beneath it hung a ladder of specifications: rifle, pistol, grenade, automatic rifle, submachine gun, machine gun.

  An Annie Oakley in pants, Geoff thought, and then he realized that was unkind. The guy was trying to be nice.

  “I’m going to the Piedmont counter,” Geoff said.

  “Ids over dare,” the PFC said. “I vus dare. I carry id over dere for you.”

  “Thank you,” Geoff said. What he would do now, he decided, was buy the Good Samaritan a drink. That would be the decent thing to do, and it would also give him a little company. What was the accent? he wondered.

  Piedmont told him he had a seat on Flight 119, departing at 8:15, arriving in Fayetteville at 9:05, and to please be ready to board the aircraft at 8:00.

  “Let me buy us a drink,” Geoff said to the Good Samaritan.

  “I godda ged back,” the Good Samaritan said. “I god somebody.”

  “I would be happy to buy him a drink, too,” Geoff said.

  “I godda ged back. Tank you chust duh same. Maybe I see you on duh airplane. Vee going to Fort Bragg too.”

  “Well, thank you very much,” Geoff said.

  “You uniform’s a mess,” the Good Samaritan said. “You know dat?”

  And then he walked away.

  German, Geoff decided. He had an accent very much like Fräu What-was-her-name, who had been his governess one summer at Agonquit.

  Well, he had tried.

  He turned back to the man at the Piedmont counter.

  “Where’s the Admiral’s Club?” he asked.

  The clerk raised his eyebrows.

  “Take the escalator to the second floor,” he said. “Turn right. Room 220.”

  When Geoff pushed open the otherwise unmarked door to Room 220, an attractive young woman in a stewardesslike uniform rose from behind a desk to bar his way.

  “I’m sorry,” she said firmly, but smiling. “This is a private club.”

  “Yes, I know,” Geoff said. He fished the card authorizing access to the Admiral’s Club from his wallet and showed it to her. It was issued by the airline to certain favored people, such as those who traveled first class a great deal, and to some more favored, such as those with an intimate knowledge of the airline’s financial affairs, like Porter Craig, chairman of the board of Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes, who had arranged for the financing of the airline’s last twenty additions to its fleet of aircraft. Geoff’s version of the card was the one with the color coding that meant that no bill would be rendered for drinks or anything else the Admiral’s Club had to offer.

  “I’m on Piedmont 119 at 8:15,” Geoff said. “If I fall asleep, make sure I make it.”

  “We’ll have you on it, sir,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Geoff said, and walked around the barrier into the club. A second hostess greeted him. She seemed a little surprised to see a private soldier (he was now a private, the sergeant major had told him, and his records would indicate that he had satisfactorily completed basic training) in a mussed uniform, but he had passed the Keeper of the Portals, and must be presumed to be a bona fide guest.

  “There’s a chair here,” she said. “And a table there. Would you like something to eat?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Geoff said. “What are my options?”

  “I think the open-faced steak sandwich is very nice,” she said.

  “Please,” he said. “Medium rare, and a bottle of Tuborg.”

  She sat him down and returned in a moment with The Wall Street Journal and the Atlanta Constitution and, a moment after that, with a bottle of Tuborg beer and a stemmed glass.

  He opened The Wall Street Journal to the rear pages and found what he was looking for, a small advertisement:

  (This announcement appears as a matter of record only.)

  $139,000,000

  Limited Partnership Interests

  Izamatzu Steamship Company Ltd.

  A Steamship Holding Company

  We Assisted in Placing These Limited

  Partnership Interests

  Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes

  11 Wall Street and Worldwide

  It didn’t matter what the advertisement said, just that it was there in the WSJ. There was generally at least one such announcement a week. Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes was still out there, loaning money to the Japs and whoever else of sound financial standing was willing to pay them a percentage off the top of the gross figure. And he was in the Admiral’s Club having a Danish beer and about to have a steak sandwich, and not in the Fort Jackson stockade, about to scrub the floor with a toothbrush. All was right with the world.

  But then, as he sipped the cold beer, he realized that not everything was in its place. His mother in New York was, because of him, taking pills and making life for his father and the help hell. He should have thought of calling home right away.

  There were telephones in here, but he didn’t think he should pick one of them up and startle the business community with his greeting. “Hi, Mom! I’m out jail.”

  He would have this beer and another one, and then he would walk down to one of the phone booths in the terminal, a real phone booth, not a fiberglass clamshell mounted on the wall.

  He saw the hostess who had taken his order lean over to take someone else’s. Not very far, but enough for her skirt to lift in the back. Taking in that glimpse of her slip, he realized that it had been one day longer since he had dipped his wick than it had been since he had had a beer.

  He wondered if there was anything that could be done to remedy that sad situation at Fort Bragg.

  The steak sandwich was delivered, and he ordered another beer to drink with it; and then, aware he was doing his duty, he got up from the table and walked out of the Admiral’s Club and took the elevator to the main concourse.

  VII

  (One)

  Main Concourse

  William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport

  Atlanta, Georgia

  2015 Hours, 11 December 1961

  “The Craig Residence,” Finley’s usually plummy voice came somewhat tinnily over the line.

  “I have a collect call for anyone from Geoffrey Craig. Will you accept charges?”

  “Yes, of course,” Finley said. Geoff had a mental picture of him sitting in his overstuffed chair in the kitchen, television on, feet on a leather hassock.

  “Hello, Finley,” Geoff said.

  “We have been rather concerned about you,” Finley said.

  “I’m out of jail, Finley,” Geoff said.

  “Your parents will be enormously relieved to hear that,” Finley said. “Presuming of course, you left with the permission of the appropriate authorities.”

  Geoff heard a buzz on the line and then his father’s voice.

  “Mister Geoffrey is on the line, sir,” the Craig’s butler said.

  “Geoff?”

  “Hi, Dad,” Geoff said.

  “Where are you?”

  “In the Atlanta airport.”

  �
��What are you doing there?” There was alarm in his father’s voice.

  “On my way to Fort Bragg. I’m out of the stockade.”

  “Thank God!”

  “Cousin Craig had a lot to do with it, I think,” Geoff said. “He was at Fort Jackson this morning.”

  “I know,” Porter Craig said. “He called here. He…led me to believe you would be…confined…for some time.”

  Why, that sonofabitch! Geoff thought. He certainly knew before he left Colonel Sauer whether or not Sauer was going to turn me loose. He was sticking it in the old man for some reason. Why?

  “Well, I’m out.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’ve been reassigned to Fort Bragg,” Geoff said.

  “To do what?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  That’s a white lie. This is not the time to tell him I’m going to be a paratrooper and God only knows what else.

  “Is Mother there?”

  “She’s resting,” Porter Craig said. “I don’t think we should disturb her.”

  “No,” Geoff said. Resting translated as tranquilized into a zombie.

  “Are you all right, Geoff?” his father asked.

  “Fine,” Geoff said. “I just had a steak sandwich and a beer.”

  “You all right for money?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Not a thing,” Geoff said. “I’m fine.”

  “Is there any chance that you could come home anytime soon?”

  “I’ll be better able to answer that after I get to Fort Bragg.”

  “Have you an address there?”

  “Not yet,” Geoff said. “I’ll send it, or call, when I know.”

  “Call,” his father said. “Call collect.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “I’ll tell your mother you called when she gets up.”

  “Please.”

  “Well,” his father said.

  “Dad, I have to catch my plane,” Geoff said.

  “I understand. Geoff…take care of yourself.”

  “Good-bye, Dad.”

  He hung the phone in its cradle and exhaled audibly, then started back to the Admiral’s Club.

  There was a small waiting room opening off the corridor, six rows of fiberglass chairs. He saw the Good Samaritan in it. He was at the back of the room, sitting with a young blond woman. They were sitting sideways on the fiberglass chairs, doing something on a chair that separated them. In a moment he saw what it was. They had a loaf of bread and a couple of packages of plastic-wrapped luncheon meat, and she was making sandwiches for them. As Geoff watched, the Good Samaritan took a bite from a sandwich.

  Geoff thought that was an extraordinary thing to do in an airport, and wondered why they just didn’t go to a restaurant or one of the hamburger—hot dog counters scattered around. But then it came to him: They didn’t go to a restaurant because airport restaurants were expensive, and they hadn’t gone to a hot dog counter because they couldn’t afford even that.

  This made Geoff very uncomfortable. He averted his eyes and picked up his step, hoping that the Good Samaritan had not seen him.

  When he returned to the Admiral’s Club, two soldiers in uniform were there. A middle-aged major general was sitting with a lieutenant, who looked to be about as old as Geoff. So far as the major general was concerned, Geoff was invisible. The lieutenant at first appeared surprised to see a private soldier in the Admiral’s Club, but when he noticed the mussed uniform, he, too, seemed unable to see Geoff.

  When the hostess came, Geoff ordered an Old Bushmill’s Irish whiskey with just a little ice and not much water, picked up a copy of Time, and read that until the hostess came back and told him they had just announced his flight.

  (Two)

  When Geoff got on the plane, the Good Samaritan and the young blond woman were in the second row of seats behind the plastic divider that separated first class from coach.

  The Good Samaritan was in the aisle seat, the blond woman beside him. The window seat was empty.

  “I zaved you a zeat,” the Good Samaritan said. He crawled past the young woman, freeing the aisle seat for Geoff.

  “Thank you,” Geoff said.

  “Dis Ursula,” the Good Samaritan said. “I’m Karl-Heinz. Karl-Heinz Wagner, like the composer.”

  The young woman shyly offered her hand. She acts as if she’s afraid of me, Geoff thought. Or ashamed. Or maybe she’s just shy. Her hand was soft and seemed fragile.

  Karl-Heinz Wagner’s hand was firm and calloused.

  “Geoff Craig,” Geoff said.

  “I saw you walk past in the airport,” Karl-Heinz said. “I tried to catch up with you, we had sandwiches, but you was gone.”

  “I didn’t see you,” Geoff lied.

  “It takes forty-five minutes to Fayetteville,” Karl-Heinz offered. “Not long. I asked.”

  “No,” Geoff said.

  Karl-Heinz disapproved of the slackness in Ursula’s seat belt. When he tightened it for her, his cuff rose and Geoff noticed his wristwatch. It was ugly—an oblong with rounded edges—and battered, and it was on a cheap artificial leather strap.

  Karl-Heinz and his wife were obviously very poor. There had been some obviously very poor people in Company “C,” but that hadn’t made him uncomfortable. Karl-Heinz and his wife, though, made him uncomfortable. He didn’t feel superior, he thought. It was nothing like that. Just sorry for them.

  The plane left the terminal and taxied to a taxiway. There were two parallel taxiways. The other was lined with airliners.

  “Look at that!” Karl-Heinz said. “So many airplanes. This is the busiest airport in the world, not just the Free World. Did you know that?”

  “I think I heard that,” Geoff said.

  A stewardess leaned over them.

  “I’m taking drink orders while we wait to take off.”

  “Please, let me buy you a drink,” Geoff said. “I owe you for carrying my bag.”

  “I’ll carry it in Fayetteville too,” Karl-Heinz said practically. “If you want to do that. I don’t have the money to buy back.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Geoff said. “What’ll you have?”

  “What will you have?”

  “Do you have any Tuborg?” Geoff asked, and the stewardess shook her head no. “Heineken?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to have a beer,” Geoff said.

  “Me too,” Karl-Heinz said. “Thank you.”

  “And what will you have?” Geoff asked Mrs. Wagner.

  “Nothing, thank you,” she said, barely audibly.

  Karl-Heinz said something to her in German. Geoff couldn’t make a word for word translation, but he understood it. It was a phrase he had often heard from Fräu What-was-her-name, a rough translation of which was “Take it, it’s good for you.”

  “Please bring three beers,” Karl-Heinz said to the stewardess.

  Mrs. Wagner seemed embarrassed.

  The beers were served as they were coming out of their climb. Karl-Heinz poured some in his glass, looked at it a long second, and took a swallow.

  “That’s good,” he said, and raised his glass. “Prosit!”

  “Prosit!” Mrs. Wagner said ritually. Shyly.

  “Mud in your eye,” Geoff returned the toast.

  “‘Mud in your eye,’” Karl-Heinz quoted and laughed. Then he looked at his beer bottle and laughed again.

  “What a wonderful country!” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The beer is European, right?” he said. “It says Holland. It comes all the way from Europe, and a private soldier is unhappy because it isn’t the kind of beer he wants.”

  “Was hast du gesagt?” Mrs. Wagner asked, and Karl-Heinz repeated in German his observation that it was proof of what a wonderful country it was that a private soldier had to settle for an imported beer.

  Geoff was genuinely surprised at how muc
h he could understand Karl-Heinz’s German. He had obviously learned more from Fräu What-was-her-name than he had thought he had. Dietrich—Hannelore Dietrich. She came clearly into his mind’s eye. A large, comfortable woman who had worn her blond hair parted in the middle and drawn into a bun at her neck. She had always smelled slightly of caraway seeds.

  And she had tried to teach him how to speak German. He wished now that he had paid more attention to her.

  When she finished her beer, Mrs. Wagner asked her husband softly about a toilette. Obviously, Geoff decided, she did not have much experience with airplanes. Karl-Heinz looked around and found the sign and directed her to the rear of the cabin. Geoff stood in the aisle to let her pass. She seemed embarrassed, he thought, as if going to take a leak was somehow shameful.

  When she came back, at the moment he stood to let her by, the airplane ran into what the pilot would call “a little mild turbulence,” and she lost her footing and fell onto him. She knocked him back in his seat as her breasts collided with his hand.

  Geoff Craig was instantly made aware that Mrs. Wagner was not wearing a brassiere under her gray, rather ugly suit and high-necked blouse. The softness of her breast pushing heavily against his face instantly aroused him and as instantly shamed him. Not only was she somebody’s wife, but there was something about this female that was uncommonly wholesome and vulnerable. Her embarrassment embarrassed him.

  Her husband made things worse by softly calling her a clumsy ox.

  She finally found her footing and got into her seat. Her face was dark red, and she kept her face averted from Geoff during the rest of the flight.

  Karl-Heinz declined the offer of a second beer, and Geoff was unwilling to drink alone.

  (Three)

  Inside the terminal at Fayetteville, there was the sign the sergeant major at Fort Jackson had told him to look for. But when they went to the baggage carousel to claim their luggage there was something else.

  There was a sergeant wearing a green beret, a pleasant-looking young man in fatigues, holding up a sign on which U.S. ARMY SPECIAL WARFARE CENTER had been neatly lettered in the prescribed Army fashion. Stuck to the bottom of the sign was an automobile bumper sticker, one Geoff had seen on cars in Princeton: “HI, THERE! I’M YOU’RE WELCOME WAGON LADY!”